With Jason Kidd out, Mike Woodson has opted to start the game with a big lineup, placing Carmelo Anthony at the small forward alongside Kurt Thomas and Tyson Chandler. The weird part about this is that he hasn’t used this configuration for very long.

In Wednesday’s win over Milwaukee, Thomas got the start, but played only four minutes in the game. After a brief starting stint, Woodson generally gave the extra minutes to Novak and Prigioni for the obvious reason that both were playing excellent. Perhaps the idea is just to use Thomas to set some kind of menacing tone early in the game after which his presence isn’t really necessary.

We’ll see how this plays out Friday night against the Wizards, but considering Washington’s 1-12 record, one hopes we’ll be celebrating plenty of garbage time minutes for everyone Oprah style, “You get some minutes! You get some minutes! YOU GET SOME MINUTES!”